Star Gazing.....

It was time of Hailey Comment. I guess i was in high school.... I remember the Hailey Comet.... and the struggle me and pappa did to watch it.. We used some techinque to build our own telescope.. To a lot of extent we were successfull too... Just not a brilliant effort was one of the most successfull ones... :) I was all smiles... :) I guess most of the kids would have couple of common dreams about their future when they were young... Ex: Astronaut, Doctor, Pilot... I mean.. these are the common ones almost every kid dreams of when he would be growing.... So was I...... When i was young, me and pappa used to do a lot of star gazing.. lot of days we would ly down on terrace looking at the sky and talking about stars... As a kid i have enjoyed doing it... Not to mention about the way we used to get on to the terrace(one broken ladder).... my mom never dared to get onto that terrace ever... :)

I mean i always used to enjoy looking at sky..... i love to see those stars.... try to make your own constallation looking at them... interpret in your own way was sooo much of fun.... after i came into mysore... i had company to star gaze again... Me and Madhavi... Ha ha ha ha.. we used to say we would combined studies and it was more of fun that studies... :P We used open the terrace door and star looking at trhe stars and enjoy... I really cherish those days... :) We had named one star as DISCO star.... ha ha ha... but i finally found the real name of it... its called a DOG STAR(Not a very serious name either ;)) Good OLD DAYS.... :)

Now came in a time in my life where i could say that i am going to do a REALTIME STAR GAZING.... Before i came to Cincinnati i had collected a lot of information on star gazing by Pat.... I was looking forward for it too.... I was sooo thrilled to know i could do it for real... Man... that's one chance for life time... For me anythign connected to stars was just what i had seen in Nehru Planetorium... It was limited to that.... But that expereince of the planetorium is one to cherish too....

I waited for 3 months for THE DAY OF STAR GAZING.... I have bugged Pat enough about when are we having clear skies.. It was just not clear skies, the climate had to get better t

oo... since it was tooo cold to be in open... This was my last week in Cincinnati... I had almost given up on the plan... But Thursday evening Pat gave me a call asking me to get ready for friday for the STAR GAZE..... I was thrilled.... I did find out from our transporter(Raju) if he would like to join... He is one enthu KID... :) He was equally thrilled as i was.. So all the plans were made and set...

Pat got us all the route to the state park and he told that its going to be really cold, better dress for the cold... Friday we were supposed to reach the state park by 7... But we the enthu people, we reached the place by 5.45... :) Its one big space with a lake around... It wasnt so cold when we went there and were all set to see the GADGETS... :)

Pat came in by 6.30 and he opened his car boot and we were like staring at the stuff he had got with BIG OPEN MOUTH....... He first set one small telescope and he asked to have a look at Jupiter before moon rises.. since it was a full moon day, there could be issues with bright moon light.. and then Pat started unwinding the accessories of his telescope... I was dumbstruck looking at soooo many things and such big telescope.... Wooooow.... he set it all in few minutes.... By then we did have a look at Jupiter and could see three of its moons tooo in smaller telescope...

The telescope which Pat set, was somehting i had seen just in palnetorium... was eager to look through it.... and here we go.. BINGO, did see jupiter and its moons clearly..... was all thrilled... by then amit started saying he was glad to see GURU which is his griha.. :) he he he he.......

It started get colder, and colder with time.... By then moon started to rise.. and i had never seen mooon soooooooooooo big as i saw that day.. i was surprised and felt had missed something so far... Moon loooked invariably beautiful.... :) Tried to capture the pictures of moon too.. But i bet what my eye saw cant be seen in the pictures... :) BEAUTIFUL....

Then Pat started explaing us about few start clusters... easiest which all of us recognised was orion.. i always used to see orion as a cluster which looks like a teddy bear... :D Yeah my interpretation.. and got to know the correct one completely as pat explained.. :D Did see some more as name them...

Next to orion he showed a very small star cluster where i could see nebula soooooooooooo colourful and sooo beautiful.. Trust me that was THE DAY..... I mean so many years we read about whats star cluster, nebula, and all that... I mean looking at it was a BIG THING for me.. in between pat told us about the expeditions he had for astronomy... and trust me PASSION is the only word which can explain it.......

Then was the turn to see saturn... And we had take few breaks in between and stand near the heater to get ourselves a little warm atleast... my legs were totally numb... so was raju's....... But we overlooked everything, bcoz this was a dream come true for us... :)

Then we took a lot of pictures.. which i am still processing.. will post it sooon.... I had best of the experince.... hats off to PAT's passion towards astronomy.... and i am soo glad we had equal enthusiasm to watch it.. :) Now we are die hard fans of PAT's passion... :)